Archive for the 'ideas' Category

Springtime can be a great time for exciting growth & new beginnings! This week I went on a creative quote scavenger hunt to find inspiring words that connect to this spirit of the season…. Enjoy:

True creativity often starts where language ends. ~ Arthur Koestler

Every artist was first an amateur. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting. ~Winston Churchill

The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth. ~Ezra Pound

After you’ve painted a couple of thousand paintings, then you can begin. ~Carl Rungius

I don’t go into the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue. ~Richard Diebenkorn

Carry the beginning to the last stroke. ~Kevin Weckbach

Nature is infinitely creative. It is always producing the possibility of new beginnings. ~Marianne Williamson

In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin; A grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak. ~ James Russell Lowell

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. ~Arthur Ashe

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. ~Pablo Picasso

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. ~Walt Disney

The beginning is the most important part of the work. ~Plato

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the the hour of the new clarity.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Beginnings are always messy. ~ John Galsworthy

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. ~Napoleon Hill

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art. ~ Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe

The important thing is somehow to begin. ~Henry Moore

Start a painting with fresh ideas, and then let the painting replace your ideas with its ideas. ~Darby Bannard

When I saw that Seth Apter put out a call for his new online collaboration Living with Art, I thought taking a virtual tour into artist’s homes and spaces to see and learn how they live with art was a fabulous idea! Every Thursday over on Seth’s blog The Altered Page, a group of different 7 artists are featured with a photograph that captures his inspiring concept.

The project just revealed its second week of artists (including yours truly!) and it’s already been so exciting to see what each artist has contributed and the artful living surrounding their physical space. Whether it’s personal art, collected art, found & curated objects, or how works are displayed within the room, on a wall, shelf, furniture piece, or frame…. it is a beautiful and creatively stimulating sight to behold…. each celebrating a unique creative style & incarnation.

You can take in the series for yourself here. And….if you are interested in contributing your own Living with Art capture, the project is still open to new submissions.

Expanding on the theme of Artful Living, here are some my favorite musings that also inspires this:

I’m eager to see (and continue to be inspired by) more Living with Art artists & their captures as new posts in the Altered Page’s series goes live every week! Thank you Seth and all the participants- I wish we could do a real-life tour of all these spaces! :)

This creative circle integrates visual journaling into an experience about so much more and I am so excited and grateful to be part of this year’s Spectrum Teaching Collective to offer my new workshop, Creative Covenants.

Creative Covenants @ Spectrum 2015

​Your creative covenants are values that you believe are core to the way you create, practice, and live as a creative and artful being. When you know your own creative values, you can activate them to empower your creative life. How would you define your creative covenants? In this workshop, you are invited to create an inspiring book made from a series of permission tags that honor these promises to our creative self and practice. Content in this workshop will also be nurtured through a series of prompts exploring what celebrates, challenges, and empowers the creative goodness in each of us!

What are your Creative Covenants?

Spectrum will be available completely online with workshop videos and PDFs that can be accessed at your own pace and on your own schedule– anytime & anywhere in the world… and also includes special membership and on-line meet up opportunities to connect with others in the Spectrum community. Whether you are just beginning an art journal practice, or looking to enhance & spark a seasoned one– or simply looking for a fresh way to explore the rivers of your Mind~Body~Spirit~Nature experience – Spectrum will take you on a journey that will enhance your understanding of yourself and impact the way you engage and relate in all aspects of your life.

Join me and the other inspiring contributors & art offerings for 6 months of creative discovery and community celebrating the empowerment of creative ritual, the freedom in uninhibited expression, body as guide and ally, art as intuitive oracle and medicine, and nature as provider of love, lesson, peace, abundance and belonging.

Spectrum 2015 Teaching Collective

There is so much creative goodness here! I can’t wait to meet everyone who experiences this creative community of art & awareness with us… I hope you’ll consider participating in this 2015 adventure- Check out what Spectrum has to offer!

As fall gives way to winter and the year begins to finish out its final month, I find myself wanting to slow down while I adjust to colder weather, holiday anticipation, thinking ahead to planning for 2015, and reflecting on the adventures of 2014.

Here are a few things from this past week helping me take time out for some pausing….

I’ve embarked on a hot chocolate challenge :) :

Fear’s Confections Hot Chocolate

My friend Lori and I have decided to enjoy this list of Top 10 Hot Chocolates in Cleveland by attempting to try each one throughout the winter. It’s a great reason to get together, warm up from the cold, and savor some chocolate. Win, win, win! Our first stop on this hot chocolate tour was Fear’s Confections. I recommend splurging for the gourmet homemade cinnamon marshmallow to accompany the drink- Yum!

I also started prepping the children’s board book I’ve chosen for creating a new revo’lution altered book, one of the creative rituals I enjoy taking time to reflect on as the New Year approaches… 2015 will be year/book #7 in the series…. Yay! If you’re in the NE Ohio area, I’ll be hosting a cozy Ready for Revo’lution art-making gathering (with hot chocolate available!) on January 7 that you can check out here.

Beginning a new revo’lution

Things are also winding down with this year’s 365 project, as my 3×5 art journey moves forward into its last month. Incredible that 11 months and have already gone by, with only one more to go…. It’s an ongoing reminder time and time again to slow down in each creative moment.

3×5 art filing (2014 365)

Day 331

Here’s also a few blog posts to help embrace your pausing spirit & manage this time of year:

As part of my ongoing re-organizing and inventorying of my work & creative space, I spent some time going through my collection of children’s books that I commonly use in group work (as well as individual sessions) with school aged youth (ages 6-12) and pre-school aged children. Many of these books I have had for years, purchased at trauma conferences, and have found really helpful to introduce a theme or topic that we will be working on before beginning the art intervention.

Shelfie: Children’s Story Books for Trauma Informed Work

Here are some of my favorites and how I like to use them with art making in the groups I’ve done over the years:

Hands Are Not For Hitting- I like to use this book with younger kiddos, between 4-6 years old to help discuss helpful and & kind ways we can use our hands instead of choosing to be hurtful. Often the story is followed by the children in the group tracing their own hands, decorating them with crayons or markers to include with the many ways we’ve discussed about how their hands can be used in positive, respectful, and non-violent ways.

A Place for Starr: A Story of Hope for Children Experiencing Family Violence- This book tells a young girl’s story about her mother, brother, and her leaving their home of domestic violence to the safety of a shelter. The book is now out of print and any available finds are quite expensive to purchase, but if you come across an affordable copy somewhere, I recommend it highly! I am super thankful to have a copy for my collection- I have found this book helpful for opening up discussions and art-making around the experience of coming to a shelter.

Emotions:

Is It Right to Fight? – The content in this book looks at aggression & anger from a variety of perspectives such as bullying, fighting between adults, war and prompts the group/child with questions to explore decisions, situations, and ways we can manage our anger or conflicts without fighting & violence.

When I’m Feeling…. series – This series features 8 different books about the feelings scared, sad, jealous, happy, loved, kind, lonely, & angry in very simple & short illustrated stories, which is great to use with young children to explore emotional themes. When we’re going to work on something like Worry Dolls, the When I’m Feeling Scared book is a helpful introduction to learn more about or normalize the feeling.

My Many Colored Days- This book is another favorite of mine: I love the images and descriptions of emotions associated with the different colors– My favorite is the green, calm & cool fish! Lots and lots of possibilities for art-making to promote emotional expression inspired by this classic Dr. Seuss book! Check out this PDF resource supporting social emotional development using a variety of arts based and hands on activities with this book.

Strength-Based:

Just Because I Am: A Child’s Book of Affirmations: I mostly use this book with young children as a way to instill not only how all feelings are OK, but that our thoughts, bodies, and who we are, is important to respect as well. This book goes really well with drawing images or pictures around the theme of “who am I?” or “this is me!”

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me- Maya Angelou’s amazing poem meets the awesome art illustrations of Jean-Michel Basquiat in this very inspiring book that tells the story of fearlessness and resiliency. The narrative from these pages sets a great foundation to do some art-making about our strengths and supports.

Courage- This children’s book I’ve used not only in my professional work to introduce what courage is to the youth I work with, but it has also inspired my own creative work! It’s a great story for adults to be reminded about too and both children & grown ups alike can benefit from creating Couarge Coins!

When I Grow Up- I initially bought this book at a local toy store in Chicago many years ago because I really liked the creative illustrations with black and white photographs of children’s faces, but then fell in love with it’s entire concept surrounding the cliche question: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Instead of focusing on the typical answer of an occupation or vocation, this book suggests another thoughtful perspective (and fun pictures) such as growing up to be brave, adventurous, generous, imaginative, curious, optimistic, patient, & more. It’s a great book to explore how we feel about ourselves (and future selves), as well as how we want to treat others.

Trauma & Loss:

Both of these books below are really valuable to help introduce what trauma is, trauma reactions, and learning how to manage traumatic stress through an animal character based story. After reading and having a discussion about the book, I often invite kids to create art expressions about what they think happened in the story.

What Does Peace Feel Like?- This is my favorite book in this section…. The content prompts children to use their imagination and explore their senses about what peace looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds like. It’s fun to have kids draw one of the senses symbolizing peace to him or her! Just like the book, I’ve seen that often peace often tastes a lot like ice cream! :)

The Peace Book- A great introductory book to start exploring simple, but meaningful ways that we can bring peace to others & the world around us! I like to prompt group members to think (and create about) what peace means to them as an individual, in our group, to others they know (at home, school, their neighborhood), and what peace means globally in the form of a flag,, shield, or mandala.

Relaxation & Self-Regulation:

These two books share lots of different ways for kids to calm their minds and bodies in the face of stress. Often before it’s time to make art, I like to take time to pause for a little bit of quiet time in the group, where we focus on breathing, movement, and more:

I hope this list and ideas were helpful! A lot of books listed above are linked to one of my favorite resources, The Self Esteem Shop, who supports trauma informed work through carrying many of these children’s books and more. I hope you will check some of them out, or if you use them already (or others!) share your experiences below!

My RÅSKOG set-up includes my sharpies, gel pens, paint pens, paint brushes, distressed ink, stamp pads, glitter glues, various mod podges, smashbooks, and more… Love this little, but amazing storage piece! It will be nice to easily wheel this cart next to my side while working on my 3×5 365 and other projects. Look here at this RÅSKOG page from Pinterest on the different ways you can use this awesome cart.

Next…. the rest of my organizing on this day included going through all my old markers…. there were lots….

Dried up marker stash

I shared the above photo with my social network and it wasn’t long before my art therapy friends began commenting with ideas & suggestions to repurpose and give a new life to them…. Everything from making them into alcohol inks (Kelly), puppets (Magdalena), pencil holders (Christy), magic wand accessories (Peg), building things with them using duck tape (Eleni), and this link from Suzanne that has lots more ideas related to making things out of old marker caps.

The suggestion that intrigued me the most was Diane’s and Rosemary’s: turning the old marker ink into some sort of spray paint accessory. I couldn’t resist trying the idea out!

With pliers, I took off the plastic ends of a handful of makers to expose the ink cylinder inside and then added a little bit of water (with the caps still on the other end).

When I took off the marker cap, lots of bright & vivid ink would drip right through and at the recommendation of Diane and Rosemary, I blew into the open end of the marker to experiment with how much the ink would spray through the other end (tip). Lots of splattering & sprinkling fun!

To soak up some of the water on the paper, I pressed the ink onto another sheet of paper monoprint style. It was interesting to see the layers of color that the different colors of ink created! Thanks Diane & Rosemary!

It was awesome to read all the ideas and inspiration that came in from a simple art material photo. One of the super good and helpful benefits of social media! Perhaps as I continue to re-organize my creative space I should post other discarded & unwanted items for a fresh perspective & new ideas…. :) Thank you to everyone who contributed- it was a delightful surprise to my creative week!

What materials and media do you repurpose into something new that creates another/different creative life for it?

It’s an honor to be part of Andrea Schroder’s special Blog Hop launching this week…..

The Give Your Dream Wings Blog Hop is a peek inside the process of how inspiring people make the magic happen. We’ve got some of the internet’s most inspiring bloggers sharing how they give their dreams wings – what they do that supports, nurtures and encourages their tender dreams to come to life. This is happening in celebration of the new e-course of the same name by Andrea of the Creative Dream Incubator.

The Give Your Dream Wings e-course shows you how to nurture and grow YOUR dream, for free, in only 10 minutes a day. You do not have to wait until you have more time or money! Click here to find out about the free e-course, and to read the other (super inspiring!) posts in this Blog Hop.

For me, creating art in the form of visioning collages, revo’lution making, or spending dedicated time on my 365 project has helped bring clarity, energy, and inspiration to those intentions & dreams I want to collectively manifest/receive/return in my life, work, and relationships.

3×5 365

As this year’s 3×5 365 project heads towards Day 100 this week, I am excited about this milestone (all over again)!

3×5 365 :: Day 75

Tending to this creative process everyday- whether it is 10 minutes, 30, or whatever amount of time I have- is important to me… and worth it for overall well-being, growth, and understanding.

3×5 365 :: Day 94

I continue to enjoy witnessing these artful, soulful messages surface for reflection and as a guide for my dream-filled adventures!

Art Abandonment has a simple concept (but is so much more!) : to make art and leave these art expressions or creative happenings behind in various public spaces & places for others (to hopefully) discover and find. Often these random acts of art share (but not limited to) visual and written messages of kindness, encouragement, and hope. Art made for abandonment serves as a creative offering that extends beyond our individual artist self, but instead serves others, strangers, communities, and the universe.

This book is an inspiring how to guide about the wonderful purposes behind art abandonment, what it means to become an art abandoneer, ideas & examples of art abandonment projects & challenges, helpful material and location considerations, as well as the meaningful and joyful impact art abandonment can have on those who stumble upon its gift. Colorful photos of abandonment art and lovely testimonials from project participants and recipients also add to the book’s contents. If you are interested in joining the Art Abandonment movement and meeting other Art Abandoneers, learn more about Michael deMeng’s Facebook group.

I’m looking forward to introducing & recommending this book’s creative goodness to participants involved in 6 Degrees of Creativity’s Random Acts of Art Adventure, as well as The Creative Deed Project. It is a perfect companion for enhancing our creative fun and art journeys. I hope keep sharing more inspired by this book!

Over the last few months, I’ve been researching and collecting different sensory based activities and ideas (mostly on Pinterest) to support self-regulation and creative ways to foster relaxation in children & adolescents. My long term goal is to create some kind of comfort kit that includes a variety of these hands on tools that I can use in my group work with school age youth impacted by trauma.

For more information about self-regulation, trauma, and children, check out these posts:

I’ve started to move from the “collecting ideas phase” to the “making & experimentation phase”, embarking on trying out these ideas myself to see how they might work.

My first self-regulation comfort kit accessory I’ve started to work on and play with is a Relaxation Bottle. I became inspired by this idea through discovering this helpful post. I thought this type of relaxation bottle could be a soothing and fun way for group members to calm their minds and bodies, as well as help bring their attention to the here and now through focusing on the inside of the bottle.

The combination of the glitter glue and clear tacky glue creates a sparkly solution for the fine loose glitter to gently dance in. It is important the water you use to fill the bottle with is hot, as this will melt the glitter glue and will prevent clumping inside the bottle.

Group members could first release some physical energy through helping shake the bottle and then watch the glitter slowly settle to the bottom of the bottle. Discussing the impact of this activity in relationship to the youth’s body and awareness of sensations they experienced would also be interesting to learn more about (and express through art!).

A helpful final touch will include making sure the bottle’s cap is permanently attached with some kind of superglue to keep the solution from getting out!

Having done this first test run, I think my next attempt will try a slightly smaller plastic bottle (it would be cool to have individual bottles for each group member to use), as well as include more glitter glue to make the solution inside a little thicker (I used a smaller sized bottle), but overall… the relaxation bottle idea was fun to make and I think will make a great addition to the toolkit I’m creating.

I will keep you posted on other self-regulation comfort kit accessories I try out as this experimentation phase continues!